Brilliant Disguise
by NPYD
Summary: [Later S2.] A stakeout and an adaptation.


"God, it looks like he dipped his head in motor oil," Kate remarks, pulling apart her cream cheese wonton and popping a bite in her mouth, humming happily. "How can he possibly think that looks good?"

"Think what looks good?" Her stakeout partner asks at her side, "Sorry, I was momentarily distracted watching that wonton get more action than I've had in—" he pauses, as if he has to think about it, "—at least a week."

"Thought you were still on the rebound, Castle," she rolls her eyes carelessly, momentarily turning the ignition long enough to crack a window, venting the tempting but slightly overwhelming smell of General Tso's that presses at the seams of the cruiser, "that IS why you've been following me even more than usual lately, right? Watching me do paperwork – still creepy – and coming on boring stakeouts?"

Kate regrets her comment immediately at the way the sardonic quirk in his lips falls for a fraction of a second, replaced just as quickly with a not-quite-real facsimile. He'd deny it with his last breath, but she's well aware that being used by that little harlot had stung and stuck. There was no need for her to rub salt in it.

"You're the one always complaining that I'm only around for the action rather than helping with the everyday," he smoothes out, and changes the subject before she has a chance to try and mitigate the damage and inevitably makes it worse, "now what am I supposed to be looking at?"

"Salazar," she snaps back to the stakeout, the topic safe and neutral as anything will get for the moment. Their suspect orders a drink and waits, and so do they. "Look at his hair."

Castle looks a beat, then back to her, "so? He dyes it."

"Badly," she returns, wrinkling her nose in distaste and keeping her gaze half fixed on their suspect while she swigs from her water, hoping to dilute the saltiness of the meal a bit. "Not at all flattering."

"Maybe it's not about vanity," he pipes up beside her, uncharacteristically quiet and without his typical exuberance. She thinks she's stepped in it this time, reminding him about Ellie, about another person who just wanted to use him. He'd been so happy to ride along, even if their boring-but-necessary task of waiting for their dirtbag of the week to show his (or her) face.

She's sure that they have Ray Salazar for their murders, but a lack of DNA and the media in hysterics over two bodies in as many weeks pulled out of East River had them rotating with Ryan and Esposito round the clock, sitting on the suspect and waiting for him to blow his nose on something besides his sleeve, discard a coffee cup, anything. So far, his biggest mistake has been eating at a dimly-lit diner with a B- from the health department in the window, tucked into a run-down corner of Queens. It's utterly mundane and by no means something he'd bother filling pages of his Nikki Heat doing. But he's here, and for whatever reason he has, she is – perhaps more surprisingly than it should be, these days – happy that he is. She could do stakeouts by herself, certainly. But company helps.

He chimes in again after a stretch."Maybe it's just about slipping into the crowd unnoticed."

"That man should be grey as a mule and the dye job isn't fooling anyone. Not even in the dark," she snorts. "It's a lie either way."

"Maybe so," Castle murmurs. "In D.C., young politicians often put grey in that isn't there. Gives an impression of authority, blends them into the ruling generation. But we live in New York. Model and fashion central. Embodiment of all things young and beautiful."

"If that's what he was after, I'd say he needs to ask for a refund from his stylist. Though it won't matter once he's bathed in sanitizer and shaved down in prison."

"This place isn't kind to age, that's all I'm saying. The power may be in the hands of the old, but it's still the paradise of youth. Covering signs of that… otherness, up - albeit badly in his case – it's an adaption. Effective camouflage," he explains, running his fingers through the thick hair at his temples, "everyone, just about, has their way of blending in, if standing out would be a disadvantage. Certainly for an aspiring serial killer, he doesn't want to attract attention to himself. And I imagine most people - homicidal maniacs included - don't like being reminded of their mortality every time they look in the mirror."

"What a waste," she says, and absently passes a crispy wonton to Castle in exchange for a proffered eggroll. "Dyes, lifts, injections, surgery, creams, pills. That whole industry built on denying the inevitable and invariable change. It's just such a waste."

"How so?"

"We see it every day. One day, all of our victims are just going about their lives, marching along this one-way timeline. The next, they're frozen in whatever age they were the moment they died – forever. That's the only stopper in ageing, death. To waste so much time and effort trying to put a mask on something that's universal and inevitable is an exercise in pointlessness, a waste of whatever time you do have."

"And yet ageing on is the death of relevance in a youth-oriented culture, isn't it?" he says peevishly.

It dawns on her at last, and before she can do the wise thing and keep quiet or say something placating to end the conversation, the conclusion tumbles from her mouth. "You dye your hair, don't you?"

Castle blows a puff of air from his nose, his eyes unfocused on her and watching Salazar drum his fingers while waiting for his food. "I never said that."

In spite of herself, she removes her attention momentarily to examine him in the closeness the car provides, although the lack of light makes it difficult. She'd not have suspected. A smile spreads across her face. She finds the quirk somehow endearing, as absurd as it still seems.

"You do-o-o," she wheedles.

"I didn't see lumberjack legs under my coat when I broke down your door in a display of heroic and virile manliness, and pulled you out of a bathtub in a burning apartment," he snaps. "And your hair has been at least three colors and four different styles in just a year and change."

"That's different!" she argues, though she's mentally scrambling for a logical argument why. Blending in, he'd said. She supposes she does, too.

"We all carve away pieces of ourselves to fit in the space we're provided," Castle intones softly, watching the lazy activity of the diner the way a child watches an ant farm.

Silence descends into the small space, humid and stretchy, and he eyes her warily, as if unsure of what she'll do with this new information. She could, in theory, mock him. Stash it in her arsenal for when he gets on her nerves some time, which will likely be in the immediate future because that's what he does. But it's not a laughing matter to him, so it's off limits to her, as silly as she finds it.

She trusts him. He knows that. He must, after all that happened with Coonan weeks before. How could he think that he can't trust her with this piece of him? But then, who does Castle trust? Who would he even discuss something like this with? Not his superficial friends; his poker buddies are hardly confidant material. Not yet in Ryan or Esposito, though that's somewhat more plausible. He wouldn't burden Alexis with the insecurities of an adult (surely, being a father of a sixteen year old girl, he knows she has enough of her own), and he'd only go to Martha if he wanted more of them in this department.

He's left with her. Unless there were other people in his life she was unaware of, but somehow, she doesn't think so. It's her, and so far she's failed to see it, hasn't even tried to be for him half of what he is for her. She'd just assumed he had it all in someone else.

"I think you'd look good," she says, a peace offering and also conveniently the truth. It's not like she hasn't, on occasion, envisioned what he'd look like as an older man, though thoughts of that led to very uncomfortable thoughts of her, as an older woman, as if the two ideas were necessarily linked. "Very… authorly. Not that I mind it as it is, but… if you stopped coloring it..." she trails off, wondering if she's dug herself in too deep.

"Mmm," the indistinct acknowledgement hangs between them, before he seems to decide the better of making things awkward again. "You're assuming I do. So far you have no evidence."

"I've made cases on less."

"No evidence," he reiterates with playful exasperation, the pressure in the car lightening some, "all conversations hypothetical. You've got suspicions, perhaps founded ones… but you've got no physical proof, no witnesses, no legally incriminating statements."

Tentatively, she reaches for his face, met with the wary gaze of an exposed animal emerging from its den, not knowing what he'll find on the other side. Her hands are cold. She only notices is when the pads of her fingers skate across his cheekbone, warm and sharply defined.

"I'll get a search warrant."

"Can't," Castle huffs petulantly, still watching her intently from the corners of his eyes and staying stiller than she thought possible for someone so perpetually busy as he. He's almost unaffected. It bothers her how much that bothers her.

"Will," she snips back, unable to keep the smile out of the corners of her lips. She's unable to make it out in the dark, but beneath her fingers, his cheek grows warm. She imagines pink blossoming across his face, a cross between cartoonish and sweet boyishness.

"Well, if I had any grey hair – _hypothetically –_ you'd be waiting quite a while to see it. Alexis would never let me live it down if I did and I'm not ready for those jokes." Ah, yes. The wonders of having a teenage daughter, she supposes. Her own father had often said she was responsible for every grey hair on his head, and she'd teased him rather mercilessly about it.

"If it makes you feel any better, I'll keep watch and spot it before she does. I see no evidence upon preliminary inspection."

"Which means my stylist is getting an excellent tip next time I go in. Hypothetically." She barks a laugh, diffusing the last of the awkwardness, seeming to put him at ease again, soothe over this insecurity that strikes her as a combination of sweet and sad. Her fingers work into his hair, thick and ottery and uniformly dark - at least in the low light - where she imagines salt and pepper should be just beginning to creep in. It glides through her unsteady fingers with ease, and whatever color it really is, it feels good. Softer than she'd imagined. He's not stopping her, not encouraging her either. Allowing. A muscle jumps beneath the thin skin at his temple, belying the impressive neutrality of his stance.

Not unaffected, then.

Greaseball sends his fries back, propping his feet on the booth and leaning back like he hasn't a care in the world.

"Well now I know what I'm looking for. And I _am_ a detective, in case you didn't notice."

Though his gaze won't waver from their suspect – hers has; she wonders at the situation where he's more attentive to work than she – but she sees a glint in his eyes, a quirk of his lips again that says they're alright. She exhales, sounding more like a sigh of longing than she'd ever intended. She shifts, feeling as if the small space has turned positively constricting. It's not like she can actually see anything in the dark, and with his meticulous attention to detail and access to a stylist she could probably afford if she didn't eat for a month, they both know she'll find nothing.

It's like they've hit pause on the world. Their case, the reasons – the perfectly justifiable reasons – she's having difficulty remembering why this is a bad idea, everything else suspends. His steady hand falls to rest on her knee, bracing him as he bends his head down, letting her check the nape of his neck, brush her fingertips along the short hairs there to commit the feeling of his skin twitching and the warmth he gives off in waves. She's not sure what she's doing. She doubts he is either. Letting him up, Kate coughs lightly.

"Looks good. All… good." Smooth.

"So you know my secret. I've always wanted to be Batman, but now that my costume's been uncovered? Not so great," he half-jokes, eyes scanning her face in the thin threads of lamplight.

She scoffs. She's long since been certain he has his secrets, as many or perhaps more than she does, but she'll let it go for now. She's high on the one she's just uncovered. A chink in the armor, something he less-than-likes about himself. It's a reminder of how little she really knows about him, a failure on her part in some ways, yes; but it's also a reminder that he's human and occasionally even considers himself such.

"One of many."

Shimmying forward in her seat, she leans closer to him, falling toward what seemed inevitable from their first case together, only for him to jerk back, leaving her head spinning and her words drier and as inert as the Atacama.

"Salazar," Castle clears his throat. Who? How can he be thinking about work? _Her_ work. "He's moving. Napkin on his table, saw him spit food into it."

Kate wrinkles her nose in disgust and makes a low sound that reverberates around the confines of the car. "Good eyes," she concedes.

The moment's gone, but he's not heard the last of it. Not by a longshot. Radioing Ryan and Espo to keep eyes on their suspect as he leaves the diner and tail him to wherever he goes next, she fishes an evidence bag out of her pocket. The car door slams on Castle's side and before she knows it, he's opening hers, lending a hand to help her out as if they're stepping out of a hired car on Broadway, instead of a squad car into a dingy, deserted street in Queens. She takes his hand and rights herself, still dizzy from the long night sitting in the car and the distinct lack of oxygen she suspects was budgeted to her brain for a while there.

His fingers loosen around hers, letting her go once he's sure she's got both feet firmly – if not steadily – planted on the pavement.

"So," trotting to catch up with him, she searches for something to say, something to keep them both from locking up and relegating this to the growing folder of missed moments and things that didn't happen if they don't talk about them. "Got any more deep, dark secrets, Bruce? Tattoos? Vestigial tail? Pegleg?"

"Nah-uh," he quips. "You want to do a full search, you're going to have to buy me dinner first. Or explain a very unusual request for a warrant to Markway."

She threads her fingers through his with purpose, her palm perfectly cradled by his larger one, and she swears she can feel a heartbeat where the fleshy parts of their palms touch, a cautious pulse of hope. His or hers; who knows.

"You show me yours, and I'll show you mine."

* * *

 _My 31_ _st_ _fic (to upload on FFnet, anyway) on my 31_ _st_ _birthday. How appropriate. For those still waiting on updates for other fics, promises come only in the vague sense. There are times when I can write 5k and up in a day, and months where 100 words is an insurmountable task. I'm sorry, but hopefully this is something to enjoy in the mean time._


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